If you’re advertising Facebook or planning to launch your first campaigns, then you’ve come to the right place. With 3.14 billion active accounts per month (yes, that’s a lot!), Facebook is THE platform to reach your target and sell your products and/or services. In this article, I give you the 5 ad formats to use to sell your products with Facebook Ads.
Have you heard that you have to make a lot of videos to sell with Facebook Ads? It’s indeed a great idea to test this type of ad format, but in reality what works for a brand may not work for you.
The only way to find out? test!
I present in this article the 5 ad formats to sell to absolutely test for your Facebook Ads campaigns.
1. The still image in Facebook advertising to sell
The most classic format to announce on Facebook, the still image still has a bright future ahead of it.
The important thing with the image you will use is that the Facebook user can understand very quickly:
- who you are
- what is your offer
On the image you will use, you can add text, among other things. There are many free tools that will allow you to customize your creative.
The image used will have a direct impact on the success of your campaigns.
In order to illustrate the best practices to put in place for your business, let’s take the example of the luggage brand, Monos.
This brand is positioned on three axes:
- High-end
- minimalist
- modern
It is therefore essential that these elements are found in the visuals used.
On this first visual, the brand uses an image in 4:5 format, which allows it to take up more space in the user’s feed.
The difference in light brown and dark tones between the background and the product makes it possible to bring out the luggage in the image, while giving a minimalist and modern tone.
To put forward its luggage on this second image, the brand uses a concept: that of escape.
Monos thus puts more the mission of the brand through this type of creative while recalling the simplicity (minimalism) with a natural dream décor.
Don’t forget to customize each of your ad placements for best results.
The image formats to create for all ad placements:
News feed
- 1.91:1
- 1:1
- 4:5
Stories
- 9:16
2. Video to boost your sales
Video is the (the not so) new GOLD of advertising formats on Facebook Ads! Why? Because today more than ever, it is very difficult to attract the attention of users.
You have a split second for the user to see your content and judge if it deserves their attention for more time.
In this sense, video is an excellent format, because first, it energizes your content, then it facilitates the effort required… because yes, the Facebook user is lazy.
According to Hubspot, 79% of facebook marketers use video as an advertising format for their customer acquisition. Still not making a video? You can go for it!
Facebook recommends that you make short videos,usually below 15 seconds.
On the other hand, it’s not always the best thing to do depending on your product and the type of videos used for your ads.
At the Ad World Conference 2021,a high-flying event for marketers around the world, Facebook put forward the 7 major categories of advertising videos as well as the optimal times for each type of video.
I’ll walk you through the 7 main categories of advertising videos with optimal times here:
- The case study: 44 seconds
- Video onboxing: 29 seconds
- The use of a spokesperson: 92 seconds
- Lifestyle video: 21 seconds
- Dynamic video via your advertising catalog: 9 seconds
- Social proof: 44 seconds
- Product demonstration: 25 seconds
Let’s take the example of the brand En mode Elie by the French actor, Elie Semoun.
This is a one-minute “social proof” video that will reinforce the prospect of the legitimacy of the brand via his announcement in a major media, in this case “Friday, everything is allowed with Arthur“. It is a prime-time program on TF1, the largest French television channel.
The video formats to create for all ad placements:
News feed
- 1:1
- 4:5
- 16:9
Stories
- 9:16
3. The carousel: the ultimate choice for social selling
Carousel is a dynamic advertising format that can contain up to 10 visuals (minimum of 2) on a Facebook user’s news feed.
It is one of the advertising formats that works extremely well for e-commerce in general on Facebook Ads. Why? Because it allows you to show several products likely to interest the consumer, to highlight the benefits of a product or to do storytelling by telling a story.
Each visual has its own link. So unlike still image and video, you are able to redirect the consumer to different part of your website via each visual, if you wish.
Let’s takethe example of the Brodame brand, which makes custom textiles for young adults in Quebec. The use of the carousel makes it possible to put forward several products and to engage the user to “scroll” to the right to see more.
For the French brand Holidermie, the use of the carousel makes it possible to put forward the benefits of a product.
You can also combine image and video on your carousel to energize your content as the LPG Canada brand does.
The carousel formats to create for all advertising placements:
News feed
- 1:1
Stories
- 9:16
4. The Collection format: mobile’s ally to generate sales
The Collection format is a format designed solely for mobile (cellular) phones and allows you to facilitate the discovery, search and purchase of products and services in a visual and immersive way.
Your Collection format will necessarily contain an image or a cover video as well as four images of products.
The major advantage of the Collection format is that it allows you to keep the user on Facebook or Instagram to consult your offer through an “Instant Experience”.
The Instant Experience is a full-screen landing page that will foster a consumer’s interactions, interest, and purchase intent, according to Facebook.
This is a very interesting format to test for your ads and that will become, I believe, gradually the norm for your ads.
It is in Facebook’s desire to keep its users on its platform as long as possible by developing its own payment system, like others such as Amazon, before it.
Also, it’s a way not to make the consumer who clicked on your ad leave before they get to your landing page.
In 2018, a Google study showed that the probability of a user leaving your website immediately increased by 32% if your page took between 1 and 3 seconds to load.
With Instant Experience, you no longer have to worry about the download speed of your site to spread your products to sell! It acts as a sales page for your products.
The formats of your image or cover video to create for your ad placements:
News feed
- 1:1 or 4:5
5. Dynamic advertising: the king of sales
I talked about this in the article on Facebook’s POWER5, since it’s an advertising format that Facebook, itself, recommends you set up to generate the best results on your ads.
To make dynamic advertising, you will need to create a catalog on Facebook. It is a more or less complex procedure depending on how the store of your e-commerce is configured.
If you’re using Shopify, for example, your product catalog can sync with Facebook quite easily and effortlessly. You will have to go through your “Sales Manager” on your Business Manager.
Dynamic advertising is an advertising format that can be used in customer acquisition as well as in retargeting.
The dynamic format allows you to retarget a user who has seen or added one of your products with that same product on Facebook.
You will have understood, since he has already shown an interest in a product, reproosing him this same product on Facebook gives you more chances to convert it.
Dynamic advertising is not unique to retargeting and can also be used in customer acquisition.
In this case, by its algorithm and its understanding of users and your products, Facebook will offer the products most likely to interest each user. Each advertisement is in itself unique.
For your Facebook Ads strategy, I recommend that you test dynamic retargeting advertising at first, because your chances of converting your leads to it are multiplied.
Conclusion
I have presented here the 5 formats to test and use to sell with Facebook Ads.
There are even more formats depending on your advertising goal and what you want to accomplish with Facebook advertising.
To begin with, I recommend that you test at least 2 types of ad formats for your Facebook Ads strategy.
For example, you could test making video for customer acquisition and dynamic advertising for your retargeting strategy.
You can of course test more formats, but keep in mind that this isonly one factor in the success or otherwise of your entire advertising strategy.
Your offer, your sales tunnel, your audiences, your message are all major elements that will have a direct impact on your advertising spin-offs.